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Which Mandela Effects have you seen that are the real thing? Which have you seen that aren’t?

If you’ve heard about the Mandela Effect, you might be wondering how to tell when you’re face-to-face with a genuine Mandela Effect, and when you’re not, and the truth about how you can tell might surprise you!

The Mandela Effect demonstrates that facts and histories can change, and not everyone remembers things the same way. I’ve received emails from people writing, “I think I’ve experienced a Mandela Effect, but I’m not sure,” which indicates many people would like to know how we can tell when we’ve encountered a genuine Mandela Effect experience–or not.

There is understandably some confusion on this matter, mostly because open-minded skeptics and smug scoffers both at various times make the case that as French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace once wrote, “The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.” And it doesn’t seem too unreasonable to expect that we ought to be able to provide evidence for each proffered example of the Mandela Effect, if what we’re experiencing is real, right?

Ironically, one of the main reasons controversy exists about the Mandela Effect has to do with the fact that most any time physical evidence can be found of an instance suggesting parallel realities, at some point we will likely discover that this case of Mandela Effect was actually not the real deal.

So How Can We Tell the Difference?

My preferred explanation for all this is that we are observing quantum phenomena on the macroscopic scale, and there is no ‘von Neumann cut’ where we can start disregarding quantum effects. Quantum discontinuities can (and do) occur at every level. The way we are noticing these kinds of quantum jumps, reality shifts, alternate histories, and Mandela Effects is that we are finding examples where our memories do not match the official historical record of facts–the facts appear different than we remember, and there is a sense that things ‘have always been this way.’ Here is a simple three-step test you can use to discern whether something is the genuine Mandela Effect, or not:

(1) The Only “Proof” is Our Memories

Just like Chief Seattle’s excellent advice for wilderness travelers to “take only memories, leave only footprints,” it seems travelers between parallel possible worlds are able to do only that. While evidence of different memories will likely be dissatisfactory to skeptics and unacceptable to scoffers, our memory actually is the only evidence people are able to find of Mandela Effect examples when they are the genuine article. While memories have gotten a bum rap for years as being unreliable, it’s worth considering that some of the reasons that memories have been noted for not corresponding to historical recorded facts just might be that the Mandela Effect has been happening since before the dawn of human recorded history–which is what I believe is actually true. Now this is not to say that every time someone mis-remembers something or is confused as to what they remember we’re encountering a Mandela Effect–but it is to say that every one of those times actually might represent an example of the Mandela Effect in action.

(2) Side-By-Side Physical Examples Don’t Occur

One of the identifying hallmarks of the Mandela Effect is that when our attention is riveted by a possible case of Mandela Effect, we will not find simultaneous physical proof showing other realities we might remember. For example, if we recall the song on Mister Rogers Neighborhood to include Mr. Rogers singing, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” we will only now be able to find the lyrics being sung “the way it’s always been sung,” which at this time seems to be, “It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood.” There will not be both versions of the song in existence, but rather just the one version–which is precisely why so many people are mystified by the change. When testing to see whether a possible example of the Mandela Effect is genuine, and we turn up a strong presence of side-by-side examples of, for example, a corporate logo in transition–then we acknowledge that this is not an example of the Mandela Effect.

(3) We Might Notice Flip-Flops

While it is sometimes possible to physically witness evidence of more than one reality, such experiences will not occur concurrently, with evidence of both presenting at the same time. Genuine Mandela Effect examples of reality shifts (that are seemingly happening randomly) and quantum jumps (that might be associated with miraculous instant changes) can sometimes be experienced as “flip-flopping” back and forth between different possible realities. Some examples of this kind of thing that I’ve personally witnessed include: business hours changing back and forth between “always being open until 10pm” or “always being open until midnight; the rain gutters on my neighbor’s house always having had leaf guards, or never having had leaf guards; our elderly dog developing visible cataracts in both eyes or not having visible cataracts. These are just a few examples–and in each case, eventually one of the possible realities was selected as “always having been true.” During these times of flip-flopping realities, we will not see side-by-side examples of concurrent physical realities existing simultaneously, but rather just one or another–even though we know we’ve seen the other realities.

Why Our Current Scientific Method Can’t Provide “Proof”

Our existing scientific method was founded on old assumptions that cannot function when dealing with the reality of quantum physics. When quantum mechanics first arrived on the scene around 1900, many scientists fervently hoped they would not need to deal with any revision to the way scientific studies are conducted. Quantum weirdness such as “spooky action at a distance,” quantum tunneling, quantum teleportation, quantum superposition of states, and quantum coherence were all considered part of the weird, wonderful world of the realm of the very, very small, with nothing whatsoever to do with the ordinary human experience of the world. The built-in assumptions of the classical scientific method can’t stand up to quantum physics, yet they have remained largely unquestioned and unrevised now for over a hundred years.

Material realism’s first assumption of strong objectivity asserts there is an objective material universe “out there” that is independent of us. For example, we hope to understand chemistry by studying the interaction of chemicals, and physics by studying how physical bodies interact … yet we do not consider ourselves to be in any way entangled in what we are observing. We often imagine that we can be perfect voyeurs, having no appreciable impact whatsoever on the subjects of our study. The validity of this assumption becomes questionable when we see how inextricably connected the observer is to quantum physics experiments; the observer plays the decisive role in determining what is observed.

The second assumption of causal determinism is the familiar idea that once we understand the forces causing change in a given system, we can accurately predict the effect those causes will have. We would expect to be able to predict what would happen when we roll a marble towards a bunch of other marbles, if we knew where all the marbles were and the position and speed of the striking marble. As we will see in this chapter, quantum physics challenges our ability to understand all that we need in order to make such predictions, since the uncertainty principle does not allow us to know both an object’s velocity and position. We cannot accurately make predictions in the realm of quantum physics, other than having a sense of statistical probability for certain outcomes. Werner Heisenberg proposed in his uncertainty principle that quanta must be described as waves while they travel and particles when they are viewed, and Niels Bohr added that it’s impossible to specify the observed atom’s wave function separately from it’s observing electron. Chaos theory is another challenge to causal determinism, as the universe appears to behave unpredictably at its very core.

The third assumption of locality in material realism is the concept that objects exist independently and separately from one another. We study each experimental subject with the assumption that it is separate from other objects so we can conduct different experiments in different conditions and believe that we are studying an isolated, independent subject. At odds with this assumption is the observation of some twin quantum particles that have shown separated objects can and do remain in synchronization with each other across time and space … continuing to correlate their angles of spin with each other. This was first considered in the “Einstein-Podolsky- Rosen paradox,” later verified in the laboratory, and mathematically demonstrated by Bell’s theorem.

Assumptions of material or physical monism and epiphenomenalism assert that subjective mental phenomena are simply epiphenomena of matter. In other words, the material world is the primary mover and shaker, and things we think we observe through our minds are irrelevant, “immaterial” inconsequential side effects. Quantum physics shows us the weakness of these assumptions when we consider how observers who take quantum measurements collapse quantum waves at the moment they make that observation.

Now that we know that the assumptions forming the basis for material realism are so shaken by findings of quantum physics experiments, it’s time to start refining and revising the above assumptions of material realism into assumptions that include mind along with matter, and that better agree with the findings of quantum physics.

Gotta Catch ’em All!

At this time when one of the more popular games is Pokemon Go, with people streaming into parks, cell phones in hand, hoping to see and capture Pokemon “pocket monsters,” people are playing a real-life game of finding possible samples of the Mandela Effect all around. Corporate logos often come up as possible Mandela Effect examples, providing excellent test cases by which to see if they pass the Mandela Effect Test.

The Mandela Effect demonstrates that facts and histories can change, and not everyone remembers things the same way. I’ve received emails from people writing, “I’ve noticed these changes for years, but only just now found out thousands of other people are noticing the same changes,” which gets me wondering how long the Mandela Effect has been around.

Different people pay attention to different things, so we’ll not all be equally impressed by the same changes in history, and sometimes it takes a while before we notice something strange is going on–and has been going on for a long time. There is a tendency once we start noticing something–such as that history sometimes changes–we start seeing examples of it more often. I’ve also noticed that being with others who also notice reality shifting tends to increase our awareness of it. What’s changed since the Mandela Effect became a popular meme is that collectively we now have a mental “File” to label such incidents with, other than ‘we must have been mistaken; that’s so weird.’ Now people like George Clooney and Julia Roberts and Gwen Stefani DO have something to refer to other than “that’s so weird,” when they notice, as they recently did, that the ending of the song, “We are the champions” by Queen has changed.

My preferred explanation for all this is that we are observing quantum phenomena on the macroscopic scale, and there is no ‘von Neumann cut’ where we can start disregarding quantum effects. Quantum discontinuities can (and do) occur at every level.

Bigger than Mandela

One of the main reasons the “Mandela Effect” is grabbing peoples’ attention is that it is bigger than Mandela. The “Mandela Effect” shows those of us who’ve experienced it that facts change, and histories change. Not everyone remembers things the same way, and sometimes we also notice things change from what we remembered, and then change back again–sometimes flip-flopping more than once or twice.

No Return to Classical Reality

We can look to quantum physics for an explanation as to what is going on when we find more examples of the Mandela Effect. Rather than there being some imaginary line of demarcation where quantum weirdness no longer occurs, some physicists now suggest that quantum logic might hold true at all levels. Rather than ignoring such troublesome quantum phenomena as superposition of states and entanglement by sweeping them under the von Neumann cut, we instead need to consider the possibility that sometimes we will see macroscopic evidence of quantum phenomena in our daily lives.

No Conspiracy Required

The existence of alternate pasts was predicted by scientists such as Stephen Hawking, who has sought evidence of vibratory signatures of many possible ‘big bangs,’ for example. If and when you ever personally experience the presence of multiple possible pasts, such as some college students witnessed first-hand when looking at their own hand-written journal notes about where they were and what they were doing when the Challenger space shuttle exploded–then you might reconsider the notion of a news media or government conspiracy.

CERN came along after the fact, from the standpoint that first nations peoples have long described oral histories about how these same sorts of things (so-called “Mandela Effect”) have been happening since the dawn of time. We can see evidence of the Mandela Effect in years before we heard of it, when we remember times such as I recall having happened to me back in the 1970s, when I wanted to hear a song that I’d been hearing a lot on the radio. I couldn’t find the song any more, and it was as if it had completely disappeared without a trace. Then, many months later, I did hear the song being announced by a radio station as ‘likely to be a big hit’ as they bragged they were amongst one of the first stations able to play it. I heard this and thought to myself, “What!?! This song was being played almost nonstop by many stations earlier this year!” So if you’ve ever seen a movie or TV show or heard a song or read a book before it came out, you’ve had an earlier experience with the Mandela Effect.

Quantum Mechanics Forbids a Single History

Thomas Kuhn wrote that a paradigm defines “the practices that define a scientific discipline at a certain point in time.” When we notice that there is a strong possibility we are witnessing macroscopic signs of quantum phenomena as some of us recognize that we’ve been experiencing ‘glitches’ and shifts in reality for years, it becomes clear that rather than a conspiracy, we’re dealing with a radical re-visioning of reality. Thomas Kuhn described how there are four basic ways that a new paradigm influences the scientific process, because paradigms dictate: what is studied and researched, what types of questions are asked, the exact structure of the questions asked, and how research results are interpreted. Thanks to the work of physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Thomas Hertog suggesting back in 2006 that we might live in a “top down” universe which prohibits single histories, people are increasingly becoming more familiar with the idea that we exist in a superposition of states–such as in a holographic multiverse, where we can sometimes experience various other possible realities. Nature magazine reported Thomas Hertog stating,

“Quantum mechanics forbids a single history.”

Finding Early Historical Examples

We can find early examples of the Mandela Effect easily enough, by searching through books, newspapers, magazines and research papers with keywords such as “misremembered,” “collective misremembering,” “famously misremembered,” and “historical misremembering.” We can ask elders what kinds of “mis-rememberings” were common in their youth, to hear such examples as differences in historical dates or names, or differences in what people at the same event had heard someone say, for example. We can thus find such examples as a change in dialogue in the 1942 movie Casablanca to “Play it again, Sam,” a phrase which currently is not spoken in the film.

Mandela Effect’s Invitation to Us

The Mandela Effect is inviting us to enter into a new Quantum Age, which also happens to be a new age of awareness of our true identity as Consciousness. People have an opportunity now to become aware that we are not our bodies nor our thoughts nor our feelings–but rather, our true selves and true identities are the observers of our bodies, thoughts and feelings. And as we become aware of this to the point we increasingly observe evidence of this (through witnessing alternate realities and alternate histories), we gain the ability to recognize the primacy of consciousness as creator of experience. I strongly recommend everyone develop a habit of asking, “How good can it get?” in every situation, in order to help ensure best possible experiences–for truly this remarkably unlikely universe can become even more fine-tuned than we’ve yet experienced.

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Why Do I Devote My Career to Researching the Mandela Effect, Reality Shifts, and Quantum Jumps?

I’ve been delighted to see the “Mandela Effect” rocket from being a fairly obscure topic in 2010 to a matter of steadily increasing attention in 2016, since I’ve devoted my career to researching discontinuities, shifts, and jumps in reality. In case you’re wondering why I dedicate my life’s work to these topics, here is a short explanation of why I do the work I do.

Witnessing Mind-Matter Influence

I’ve noticed mind-matter interaction since childhood, though I noted this perspective was not mainstream in California in the 1960s when I was growing up. When I was a young girl watching rain falling in the garden outside our house, I noticed that when I was in a certain state day-dreamy state of mind, I could think “Stop rain,” and the rain would stop, and “Start rain,” and the rain would start. After testing this to my satisfaction several times, I ran with great excitement to show this discovery to my mother, who greeted my announcement with a sigh of resignation and evident apathy. Unable to demonstrate for my mother what had been working perfectly just moments earlier, I recognized the power that each of us has to effect mind-matter influence within supportive ‘zones.’ I subsequently made sure that I was quiet about it any time I helped our family’s car to start (back in the 1960’s, it was a relatively common occurrence for cars to not start every time), or other such things. Clearly, mind-matter interaction was not considered to be possible–yet in my daily personal life I constantly found it to be one of the most consistently reliable and supportive pillars upon which I can dependably rely.

In retrospect, I can see I had numerous “Mandela Effect” type experiences while growing up, such as the time in the 1970s following one of my family’s vacations to beautiful Dal Lake, India, when the furniture my parents had ordered finally arrived in California, was assembled and fitted with custom-made glass tops. I reminded my parents that they had promised the woodcarvers at Dal Lake that they would send photographs of the tables in our new home. My parents seemed surprised and confused at my insistence they should take and sent photographs, and I became confused, too, since my parents don’t lie, and always keep their promises. I knew I wasn’t remembering incorrectly, yet I trusted they were not lying to me, either–so I ‘let it go’ without forgetting this bizarre difference in remembered histories had occurred.

Thanks to growing up in a family dedicated to visiting some of the most remote areas in the world before they were forever changed by western expansionism, I spent several months each year of my childhood in parts of the world untouched by western ideas and civilization, able to experience firsthand the way I can communicate directly with people, places and things through intention, thoughts and feelings. And thanks to my close relationship with my most spiritual family member, my maternal grandmother, I gained a clear sense of the reality of unseen angelic and divine realms. My grandmother was a woman of exceptional faith, who frequently conversed with me about spirituality, angels, and God.

My 1982 Physics Degree from UC Berkeley

One of the main reasons I obtained a degree in physics from UC Berkeley was to get closer to the heart of the true nature of reality, after observing mind-matter interaction since childhood. Thanks to my lifelong fascination in the true nature of reality and consciousness, I decided the closest thing to a degree in those topics would be Physics, so I applied to and was accepted to the Physics program at UC Berkeley in the 1980s, and I especially loved my quantum physics classes. I am honored to have received a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley.

Searching for Reality Shifts in 1994

In 1994 I experienced a surge in what at the time I called ‘reality shifts,’ involving noticing things appearing, disappearing, transforming and transporting, as well as changes in the experience of time. In the process of exploring this topic and through my intention to experience a wide variety of these shifts, I found myself quickly doing exactly that. I observed many reality shifts without confirmation or validation from other witnesses, but found that shared reality shift experiences to be more enjoyable, since they provided the opportunity to discuss what happened. My searches for information on this topic across the very new world wide web came up empty as I began writing my book, Reality Shifts: When Consciousness Changes the Physical World to describe my observations of celebrities and a pet cat having been reported dead, and subsequently being observed to be very much alive. I included descriptions of how a bird feeder changed without anyone touching it between being empty and full, how the material of a jacket changed without anyone modifying it, and how a children’s book illustration from a book I read to my daughter every week changed to something completely different. Reality Shifts includes first-hand reports of conversations being remembered differently by people involved, and about a person’s name vanishing off a conference speaker’s list between the time of sitting down one morning and a subsequent break. Also included is a description of repeating events, similar to what people would later recognize as a ‘glitch in the Matrix.’ I published the first edition of Reality Shifts in 1999 in a three ring binder, which I made available to people attending my talks and workshops, and later sold through CafePress.

Starting RealityShifters Website and Ezine in 1999

The first version of what came to become the RealityShifters website began at thirdage.com in 1998, before the website had its official name. I chose the name ‘realityshifters’ after prompting on 17 November 1999 from Stein Online radio show host, Elliot Stein, in response to his request that I have a shorter, more easily remembered and spoken website URL. The first RealityShifters news ezine was sent out as an email to dozens of people who had signed the guestbook on my thirdage website, and I added new subscribers one by one, sending each month’s issue out as a regular email until the number of subscribers reached about 700. The RealityShifters ezine now reaches over 8,000 subscribers each month, and all issues are posted online at the RealityShifters News page on the realityshifters site.

The Power of Asking “How Good Can it Get?”

I’ve been writing about and encouraging people to ask the question “How good can it get?” since I first mentioned it in an article published in August 2000. The big idea behind asking this question is that when we ask, “How good can it get?” we change our perspective on this world, leaving behind petty differences and bridging the gap between the physical and spiritual worlds. Simply put, this question has the power to transform not just our perspective and the future, but it can (and often does) also influence the past. When we recognize the growing body of evidence supporting these ideas of the power of changing our subconscious narrative, we can better appreciate the power of asking my favorite question, “How good can it get?” in every situation, every day. Together, we can re-frame the global narratives of the world, enjoying getting the answers to a question we would all actually enjoy receiving the answer to.

Seeking Scientific Answers

My quest for scientific answers behind the Mandela Effect, reality shifts, and quantum jumps has been the foundation of my work as a life coach and author working in this field since 1999. As I recently wrote in a research paper I presented at the Foundations of Mind, Primacy of Quantum Logic in the Natural World,

While we have long presumed quantum logic to operate either alongside or within the classical realm, we stand to benefit from contemplating classical theory and physics as a special case within the bigger quantum reality. This paper finds support for the view of the quantum logicians who assert quantum logic to be the most comprehensive deductive logic. This is demonstrated by the derivability of quantum theory from one additional fundamental axiom beyond that required for deriving classical theory, and evidence that some fundamental aspects of quantum physics can never admit a classical understanding. Recognition that classical theory and logic is a ‘special case’ subset of the greater quantum whole invites us to completely reassess our assumptions regarding the way we view the world and what we consider to be ‘logical.’

I am delighted to have received this statement of recognition from one of my favorite quantum physics professors at UC Berkeley, Dr. George Trilling, who wrote to me in June 2014, “From looking at your accomplishments, your knowledge of physics has served you well. My congratulations on your achievements.”

Paradigm Shift Evident in the Mandela Effect

The Mandela Effect is stirring strong emotional reactions in people who, for the first time, are startled to witness their own first-hand experiences of reality shifts, such as celebrities previously reported dead being observed to be very much alive again–including the now-famous example of Nelson Mandela being observed by many to now have died twice.

The remarkable thing about the rise of the Mandela Effect is that for the first time in recorded history, groups of people are agreeing that they collectively recall different histories. This is significant because it marks the beginning of a paradigm shift in our worldview with regard to a ‘static’ sense of historical facts, to one encompassing a new view that sometimes, facts change. This paradigm shift arrives at a point in time when some scientists seek evidence of the many worlds of quantum physics being one-and-the-same as the multiverse.